Young pastor leads established Pablo church
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Matthew Connally, wife Jamie and 2-year-old daughter Amelia moved to Pablo in January when Connally officially became pastor of the Pablo Church of the Nazarene.
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PABLO — A fresh face has arrived at Pablo Church of the Nazarene with an age-old message of loving your neighbor.
“My passion is for the church to be a place where broken and hurt people can find a community that will love and support them, and point them to the God who can help them,” said Reverend Matthew Connally.
Matthew arrived in January with wife Jamie and 2-year-old daughter Amelia, nine months after Pastor Jim Perry retired. Perry led the small country church in the heart of Pablo for 23 years.
Ray Miller was a teenager when the church was founded in the late ‘50s, and still teaches the sixth-grade boys’ class. He’s seen many youths come through the church.
“You get a new batch, and they come and go,” he said. “They grow up and graduate and leave for college.”
Wednesday night youth group attendance has increased in recent months, with the greatest increase in teen numbers, according to longtime parishioner Goldie Blixt. Less than 10 teenagers were attending before Connally arrived, she said.
“Last night we had 17,” Blixt said. “The kids really like (Pastor Connally). He’s just hilarious. He’s got a great sense of humor.”
Blixt noted Connally can “really play the piano and sing, and he’s bringing in new music, the music that is popular on Christian radio.”
After graduating from high school in the desert town of Ridgecrest, California, Connally attended Point Loma Nazarene College in San Diego, California. He and Jamie married in 2006, then moved to pastor a church in Kansas City, Missouri before returning to his hometown to serve two years as an associate pastor for the Ridgecrest Church of the Nazarene.
The call to Montana was welcome.
“I was tired of 115 degrees,” he said. “I have always loved mountains, and I enjoy a place where there’s mountains, grass, trees and rain.”
But what Connally enjoys most is living what he believes.
“We believe that through the power of God’s Holy Spirit, we can live in a continual relationship with God and with people in the world to where every aspect of life is centered around loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves,” Connally said. “ The Holy Spirit gives us the ability to live that way, if we choose to live that way.”
Sunday morning worship services begin at 11 a.m. after Sunday school at 9:45 a.m. Sunday evenings a small Bible study is held at 6 p.m. Wednesday nights from 6:30-8 p.m., is Kids Club for kindergarten through grade 12.
The congregation is a “good mix” of ranch and agricultural community folks and people from within Pablo, according to Connally.
Everyone is invited to attend.
